Sasha's Gift
by r4ven3
Summary: Another one-shot, set in that AU universe post 10.6. This story follows Harry a month after Ruth's funeral. Best I don't natter on here. Best you read it instead.


**_A/N: All characters - apart from Heather MacKenzie, and Eric and Helen Whitcomb - belong to Kudos._**

* * *

"So, you are refusing to talk to me?"

"No, I just refuse to speak to you about Ms Evershed."

"Can you tell me why that is, Sir Harry?"

"Just Harry will do. I like to keep my …... association …... with her private. I consider my thoughts and feelings in relation to her to be no-one's business but my own."

"I respect that, but -"

"If you genuinely respect that, you'd say it, and then drop the subject."

"The trouble is, Harry, that without you speaking of her …... and what she was to you, then we have little to talk about."

"So be it."

Harry has broken eye contact with his interrogator, which is how he likes to think of Heather MacKenzie. She asks questions, personal questions, and he is expected to answer truthfully.

"I know how you feel, Harry -"

"You have _no idea _how I feel, so spare me the fake caring one-liners. I helped write the interrogator's handbook, as well as the instruction manual for how to resist interrogation, so good luck with this."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't aware of this being an interrogation."

"It feels like one." Harry looks at her then, the psychotherapist who – apparently – is an expert at dealing with those in grief. Obviously - to Harry - that is bollocks.

"It's just that the first step in dealing with your grief is to acknowledge that your loved one is gone, and to speak with someone about that."

"What happens if I don't?"

"Speak to me?"

"Yes. I know she's gone. I was there. She died as I was talking to her." Harry is concentrating on a patch of carpet around a yard in front of his chair. "So …... I know very well that she's dead. I attended her funeral."

"And you returned to work only a week after she was buried."

"I needed to work. I still need to work. I'm only here because I face suspension if I refuse to attend these …... sessions."

"You must miss her."

"Of course I bloody miss her. That's a stupid and inane statement to be making. Look …... I know you're trying to make a connection with me, but you're wasting your time."

"You must have loved her very much."

"No. See, that's where you haven't a clue. I _love_ her very much. `Love' is present tense, `loved' is past tense. If you knew your stuff, you'd know that. Love doesn't die when the object of that love dies. My little dog died three years ago, and I still love her. Just because she's buried under eighteen inches of earth under the walnut tree in my back garden, it doesn't mean I don't remember her with love."

"Can you describe Ruth to me. I never met her."

Harry looks up quickly, and sees the compassion, and under it – just under the surface of Heather MacKenzie's practised compassion and caring - is that other look he's seen before.

He'd seen it in the faces of people who'd attended his mother's funeral.

He'd seen it in the faces of the mourners at all the funerals he's attended in the past ten or more years.

Shit, he's sure it was visible in his own face at all the funerals – other than Ruth's of course.

What he is seeing in Heather MacKenzie's face is relief. It's a relief which says: `I'm glad it's your loved one who died, and not mine. I'm glad that I'm not the one having to face this enormous wall of grief …... because I don't know if I'd be able to handle it.'

There is a smugness in that look which Harry hates. He hates it because this time it is not he who is able to carry that smugness with him as he drives away from the funeral, back to his life where all those he loves are still alive and well. He hates it because he is beginning to feel, and it hurts so much that he wants to curl up under his duvet, and cry until he has no tears left.

"I can't," he says. "I can't describe someone who was indescribable. She was like no-one I have ever met."

* * *

He arrives home just before 7.30. Had Ruth not died, she'd possibly be waiting for him at home, and maybe they'd cook a meal together, and then eat it in front of the telly while they talked about their respective days – his on the Grid, and hers at the Home Office. As he opens his front door, he begins to feel the weight in his chest of a wall of tears. He hasn't had a decent cry since the day of her funeral, and that was four weeks ago.

Harry heads straight into his living room, and flicks on the light. He could smell something different as soon as he'd entered his house, and as he turns towards his drinks cabinet, he sees a figure sitting at the piano. Harry very quickly assesses the situation.

Sasha Gavrik,

dressed in a suit,

no weapon,

a smile on his face.

He sighs, and stands still, waiting for the gunshot. After all, he can't see Sasha's left hand. He could be carrying a pistol. Or a knife. Harry is surprised by how willing he is to accept his own death. If he's being truthful on this day, he is tired of all this. He is tired of how much he continues to hurt.

Sasha stands and smiles. "Sit down, Harry. We need to talk."

"You have a bloody nerve," he says. "I have nothing to say to you, and besides, I need a drink." Harry keeps walking to where he has a half-full bottle of whiskey, and two clean glasses. He pours himself a drink, and turns to walk to an armchair which faces the piano. "Say what you've come to say, and then get out," he says.

Sasha moves a little closer to Harry, but not too close. He leans his hip against the piano, and begins to speak.

"Firstly, before I tell you what I have come here to tell you, put that drink aside. After you hear what I have to say, you will not want alcohol in your system. Trust me when I say that."

"_Trust_ you? Are you kidding me? You're FSB. You killed Ruth. Why should I trust you?"

And when Sasha begins to speak, and then hands him a map, Harry very carefully puts down his drink, because his hands are shaking.

When his message is delivered, Sasha steps away from the piano, and heads for the door.

"Why?" Harry says, standing, and walking slowly towards the younger man, the man he'd once believed to be his son.

"Why what, Harry?"

"You could have left London weeks ago, but you waited to tell me this. You have no need for me to know this. What can you possibly get out of it?"

"My father is no longer interested in punishing you. He knows how it feels to lose the person he loves most in the world, and it has broken him. I can only suppose that he doesn't wish any more old spies to be broken. After all," he adds, "where's the fun if all the old spies are dead or broken down? We spies thrive on conflict. It's what makes the world go round."

And then he is gone.

Harry pours his drink down the sink, and rinses his glass. He won't be needing it for what he plans. He showers, changes into jeans, a casual shirt, and a thick jumper, packs an overnight bag, and rings Erin. He interrupts her dinner, but it can't be helped.

"I've changed my mind, Erin," Harry says. "I'm taking leave …... as of now. I'm going away tonight."

"Alright. I won't ask questions, but you'll be back, I take it?"

"I don't know. It depends on several factors, all of which are unknown to me at present."

"Do you want me to inform Towers?"

"No, Erin. I'll do that. I'll ring him in the morning. Thank you for …... taking over at such short notice."

"It's alright, Harry. I know that you need a break."

"I do. I'm getting out of London for a while, and I won't be answering my phone."

"Good for you."

* * *

In a little over an hour, Harry turns off the M11, and weaves his way through the narrow streets of Saffron Walden in Essex. He stops to fill up with petrol, and then he drives around the perimeter of the Common, to access Ashdon Road. As he leaves the town heading east, he drives carefully, watching for the turn-off, and when it appears, he turns left, and then crawls along the lane until he sees the sign to Whitcomb Farm.

Harry stops the car, and waits while he takes a few deep breaths. He knows he could be heading straight into a trap. If this is the end of the road for him, he is prepared. He turns through the white gates, and down another lane, until he stops where the lane ends – at the farm house. There are lights on inside, and Sasha had told him he would ring ahead, so that he would be expected. After all, it is after 10 pm, and Harry's knowledge of country folk is that they go to bed early so that they can rise early. He turns off the motor, and kills the car's lights. By the time he reaches the front door of the farm house, the porch light has been turned on. He is about to knock when the door opens …... very slowly. All Harry can hear is the loud beating of his own heart.

The door opens to reveal a man of around his own age, while behind the man stands a woman of similar age.

"We bin expecting you," the man says. "That is, if your name is Harry."

"It is." Harry steps under the light so that the farmer and his wife can see him clearly.

"Bit older than I'd expected," the man says, standing aside so that Harry can enter the house, "but you fit the description alright."

"I'm Helen Whitcomb," the woman says, "and this is my husband, Eric. This is our farm, but we sometimes offer refuge to those who need it …... if you know what I mean."

Harry does. He knows that all over the United Kingdom there are people like Eric and Helen Whitcomb who are prepared to give that little bit extra when asked. Harry is still not sure what that `extra' is.

Harry is led down a long passageway, which opens into a large kitchen, in the middle of which is a very large table. Harry looks around the kitchen, and is disappointed to see that no-one else is there.

"She's asleep," Helen says, noting Harry's scanning of the room.

Harry is so disappointed that he lets out a breath which comes out as a cry of despair.

"Well, Mother," Eric says, "I think the occasion warrants waking the girl. What do you think?"

Helen nods and smiles. "I'll show you the way," she says. "She's out the back, and if you need to stay, there's a small room next to hers. I keep the bed made up for our son, the one who's a musician. He's a DJ, so all he does is play other people's music, but I don't hold that against him. He calls the room his crash pad. It's just to the right of this door. Now, I'd go in and wake her myself, but I think she might like to see you without me getting in the way. I need to tell you that she's still recovering ….. from her injury."

Harry understands that by `still recovering', he should not expect intimacy straight away. As if he would.

Helen opens the door to a room which is dark, except for a small lamp on a low table just inside the door. Harry enters the room, and stands still while his eyes adjust to the darkness. He turns to thank Helen, but she has gone, and closed the door behind her. Harry can hear the deep breaths of the woman he has loved for almost eight years, and had believed to be dead. He slips off his shoes, so that he won't make a noise, and tosses his coat over the back of an armchair near the bed. Very slowly he walks towards where Ruth sleeps. When he reaches the side of the bed – a double bed covered with a patchwork quilt – he gazes down at the sleeping face of Ruth, and he almost loses his composure.

It is she. It is Ruth, and she breathes strongly – in and out. How can that be? But, of course, Sasha has already told him of the plan Ilya Gavrik had to lure Harry to Moscow, using Ruth as bait. The plan had crumbled when Sasha – in a fit of guilt – had convinced his father to leave Ruth to convalesce in her own country. Sasha took the next step to inform Harry, because he believed it was the right thing to do, now that his father is back in Moscow, and no longer able to influence his decisions.

Harry leans down towards Ruth, and says her name. He then places a soft kiss on her cheek. "Ruth," he says again, this time with more urgency. He touches her cheek with his fingers. Her skin is so warm. Ruth breathes in deeply, and opens her eyes. When her eyes focus on Harry's face, she turns on to her back, lifts her arms out from under the covers, and smiles into his eyes.

"Harry," she says. "I knew you'd come. I've been waiting for such a long time."

Ruth sees the tears on his cheeks, and she reaches up to wipe his face with the tips of her fingers.

"There's nothing to cry about, Harry."

"I …... I can't help it. I'm just so relieved."

"I know, and I'm sorry. But you're here now."

Ruth looks towards the door, and then turns and lifts the duvet on the other side of the bed. "Get in with me, Harry. I need a cuddle."

And so does he. He _really_ does.

"I give great cuddles," he says, as he moves around the bed to the other side. "Is it alright with you if I get under the covers ….. with you?"

"Of course it is."

"And I'll have to remove some of my clothing …..."

"You didn't bring pyjamas?"

"I did, but all my things are still in my car."

"Just leave on your shirt and your underwear, Harry. I'm sure I'll cope."

And she does. They both do.

Wearing only his underwear, and a white undershirt, Harry slides under the duvet, and wraps his arms around Ruth. She feels warm, but his body is warmer. Very slowly they ease closer, until they each feel comfortable lying this close to the other. With Ruth's head on his chest, and her arms encircling his waist, Harry feels invincible. He kisses the top of her head, and tightens his arms around her. There will be plenty of time for talking in the morning. For now, this is enough.

* * *

Next morning, just before 7 am, Helen Whitcomb knocks gently on Ruth's bedroom door. Hearing no reply, she opens the door just a little, and looks towards the bed. She sees that the two pillows on the bed are being used - Ruth's dark head rests on one, and on the other, the head of the man about whose visit Ruth had been so excited, also rests, his face turned towards Ruth. They both sleep deeply, and she can see the looks of contentment on their faces.

Helen quietly closes the door, and heads back to the kitchen to turn off the heat under the coffee pot and the porridge. She can heat them up later.

Ruth had tried to stay up for Harry's arrival, but just before 9.30 had gone to bed, unable to stay awake.

"When Harry arrives, Helen," Ruth had said as she'd bid them goodnight the night before, "send him in to me. I need to see him tonight."

Helen is glad she had followed Ruth's instructions. The way Helen Whitcomb sees it, there are already enough unhappy people in the world. If Ruth and this older man are happy being together, then the world is surely a better place.

_Fin_


End file.
